"I didn't die!" She yelled again. "This is just a dream, some stupid dream I'm having while I wait to wake up in the hospital with probably a few broken bones and a headache."
Ayana was on her feet in an instant, her red eyes hardening, going arctic. Her voice, when she spoke, lost all of the softness and compassion that had given the black-haired teenager earlier. "Do you want me to tell you that your head hit the pavement first? That it cracked open like a melon? That your legs broke in so many places that they made a half circle out and away from your body? With the force of the impact of your landing, your ribs simply became bits of bone matter that lodged in your lungs like pebbles on the bottom of a stream. Because I could tell you all of that and more, but I really don't see how it is going to help the situation. I know it is difficult to come to grips with, but come to grips with it you must, to make the decision that is now before you."
Ayana caught herself and straightened up, taking a deep breath. After a moment she sat back down, leaving a stunned Mifa to slump back into her seat as well. "I'm sorry," she said after a moment, her voice softening once again.
Mifa nods in silence, her mind spinning as she tries to get a handle on her thoughts and emotions. "Okay... assuming you're telling the truth, why am I dressed in my normal clothes? Aren't dead people supposed to wear robes or something?"
Ayana relaxed back into herself and shook her head with a bit of a smile under her mask. "No, you appear as you would normally." she gestured to Mifa's clothing. "Your clothes are a mental image projection of your former physical self."
"Well, I'm glad that I can, at least, remember enough to project. Why am I having such a hard time remembering things?" Mifa ask.
"That's a common side effect of dying. You'll get your memories back in time, I promise. Though some you may wish had stayed lost."
"What was with the people out in that waiting room? And what was with that waiting room anyway?"
"The waiting room is a place where we put souls who are waiting to be processed. Most of the time we have enough people here that not many end up in there, but if everyone is occupied, then the excess souls will wait there."
"So you are one of these processors?"
"Not exactly," Ayana said with a vague smile.
"What are you then?"
"I am what you have been given the option to be a Reaper like cops some of the sorts."
"So... you're telling me there are cops in the afterlife?" Mifa ask, looking at her in disbelief.
"If it is the term you prefer then, Yes," she said. Nodding and closing the file.
"For what? Ghosts stealing other ghosts' chains and sheets?"
Ayana gives the black-haired teenager a sour look, obviously not amused with her sarcasm. "No. We more or less police the interaction between haunting spirits and what your generation terms ghost hunters."
"Why?" That was all Mifa could think to ask.
"Well, they are spirits, not ghosts, and back before science got interested in hauntings there really wasn't much for us to do, except to police interactions with a curse and non-human spirits. However, given the influx of interest in the so-called "paranormal" in the last century or so, we have all sorts of work to do now."
"And again I ask, why?" Mifa reiterated.
"Well, we can't let on too much now, can we? The afterlife is supposed to be this great mystery, and it needs to remain so. So our job is to make sure that the haunting spirits don't sit down to a cup of tea with the psychics and ghost hunters to spill the beans so to speak."
"So, you have a force that police hauntings?"
"Yes," Ayana replied with a shrug.
"Well, why let any communication happen at all then? If you want to keep things so secretive why not just disallow it completely?"
"It's not so simple," Sighing and leaning forward on her desk and folding her hands together. "There have always been interactions between the living and the dead. The veil between the two planes of existence is too thin to stop communication. Think about it; stories of ghosts and demons and hauntings have been around for centuries. Millennia, perhaps. Back before such things were even written down. Given the scientific developments of the last few decades and human nature's drive to explain the unexplained, we've had to become a bit more proactive in making sure not too much proof gets out there. It still has to be a question of belief among people. It still needs to be something of a mystery."
The black-haired teenager nodded, taking in that information. Mifa presses her lips together in a thin line as she tries to figure out what to ask next. Taking a deep breath, trying to wrap her mind around it all. A million things were going through her head. Ways to protest that this is actually happening, ways to accept it, attempting to recall her life and what had happened? or what she had left undone?
"Oh, God, what will happen to my family or my friends?" Mifa blurted out suddenly.
"You don't need to worry about that"
"How do you know?"
"We tend to know a lot around here, especially when processing the new arrivals. Now look, I can give you a night to say goodbye to loved ones or see special places once more, but that's all. You will need to make a decision by morning."
"A decision on what?" Mifa asked.
"On whether or not you want to make a difference, because of a Reaper or whether you would simply prefer to go on to whatever personal heaven or hell awaits you."
"Well that's a hell of a choice," Mifa said as she grumbled. "No pun intended."
"It is, yes," Ayana agreed, "but a necessary one. I know thrusting this decision on you is asking a lot, but you have to move on, in one capacity or another."
"So if it is all so important that I move on, and I can barely remember my past, why do I need a night to say goodbye?"
"Because as your memories come back it will be important that you know you had one last chance to go home, to say goodbye to a friend. It helps ease your soul."
"Who or what do I get to say goodbye to?"
"Well you can say goodbye to your friends, the academy; anyplace, or anyone you wish to, but be careful, time is limited."
Mifa nods and takes a moment to think. Where should Mifa have Ayana take her? To her home? Maybe, that might jog some lost memories at least. To her academy? Yes, it would be nice to say goodbye to her friends. Mifa couldn't recall many specifics of her friends other than the knowledge that they had been good friends and their names, but she definitely wanted to say goodbye to them. What about family? The black-haired teenager searches for a moment and then comes up with at least one piece of knowledge, if not a memory, per say. Her family was no more. They were all dead.
Mifa pause, brow furrowed. "Are any of my family ghosts? Haunting spirits?"
"I..." she faltered, "I don't have their files, I'm sorry." Ayana looks down at the desk for a moment, moving Mifa's file aside.
The black-haired teenager lifted a brow as Ayana's body language and tone suggested she was lying, but Mifa let it go for now. "It sucks to say goodbye to people. Especially if they can't hear me or answer me."
"I can help with that, at least for some of the living."
"Some living people see ghosts?" Mifa asks, clearly surprised.
"Yes. You will understand after your memories return."
"Huh, go figure. So how can you help the people?"
"I can let you talk to them through a dream."
"Really? How?"
"I'll show you when the time comes. I'm assuming you'll want to speak with your friends. Anyone else?"
"No, I don't want to talk to no one," Mifa said and shook her head. "At least, I don't think so. I can't remember anyone else. But I'd like to stop by my dorm room and the academy."
"That won't be a problem at all." Ayana watched her as she thought, and knew that Mifa was trying to stretch her mind, to force herself to remember. Part of her wanted to help Mifa, to open her file and let the black-haired teenager go over it, letting the memories come rushing back. But she knew that it was better to let Mifa deal with this incrementally. It is an organic process, and rushing things often results in damage to the spirit.
"Well, I guess we should get a move on then right?" Mifa ask, cutting into Ayana's thoughts. She had given up on trying to remember; trying to force her mind to recall what it could not.
Ayana saw the change in Mifa's face and recognized it for what it was. It is a resolution to get on with things, no matter what. It is something she was guilty of at times. she nodded.
"Right," said as she rose from her seat. "Let's go."